Everything Ends
by justispainity
Summary: Sometimes things need not time nor reason, they happen. Suddenly from no where, the future that could have been is cut short and fate continues on in another path.


**Everything Ends**

_A plotless mind fuck_

-

When he thought about it, Sephiroth wasn't as harsh as you'd first think. At a quick glance he appeared to be a brooding and anti-social man, a true general as some would say, but then after you spent more time around him, you realized. Sephiroth was not an object; he was a person and he had depth, and a great deal of it. He almost always had a smile on his lips - so small that you'd never notice unless you took a closer look (which most people were too afraid to do), it was a mocking smile, ever constant, it reached into his eyes, as if he found something about life immensely funny. The only time its truly disappeared was when he was on the battlefield, then the high arches of his eyebrows would pull down at the center and his smile turn into something of a devilish smirk. He knew his limits, his boundaries. Sephiroth could kill a man with one sweep of his hand. Just like that.

It was a terrifying thought that a human being was capable of such destruction with such ease.

"Zack?" The voice startled Zack into the real world instead of his own black world that came when he thought, where all else ceased to exist, and it was just his thoughts. It was where his best pranks and jokes where thought up.

Zack turned to face the General as he sat at his desk, paper spread out on the desk before him and a cheep pen held between his fingers. His mako-green eyes shone in amusement but also warning. A 'get back to work' warning, it was unsaid, but Zack knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"Seph?" He arched an eyebrow at the general, not resisting the whim to taunt him. Just a little.

"Oh, so you are back with us then?"

Zack looked around the room. "There's no one here but you and I Seph." Humor creped into his voice and pulled at the corners of his lips.

Sephiroth looked like he was going to sigh but then settled for frowning slightly. "Get back to work."

He turned back to the small stack of papers before him, he sat at Sephiroth's desk -sharing the space until Sephiroth caught up with his backlogged amounts of paper work – then back up to Sephiroth himself for a split second before letting his eyes fall back to the paperwork laughing at him from their place on the desk. "Your joking right? Even with my help this will take at least a week."

Sephiroth didn't look up at him, instead he looked over a sheet of paper filled with small writing quickly then set it aside and began to scan over the next one, making small marks on the page and writing things down on a notepad in long scrawls every now and again. "Then we had better do it as quick as we can. Get it over and done with."

Zack's mouth hung open for a second, then he lost control of all of his muscles and flopped back in his plush desk chair, arms draping over the side and his neck bending at an awkward angle over the back of the chair, exposing his throat. An exhausted groan escaped his lips.

"You're fucking me."

There was no reply, only a shuffling of paper. It didn't seem to stop Zack's own mind coming up with it's own response.

'Would you like me to?' Muskily whispered in his ear and heat at his neck and the feeling of almost claw-like nails sliding their way under his uniform shirt and then down-

"Zack."

He jerked up in his seat, his back arching forward in the chair and his head falling forward onto the desks surface. "Hn? Shit, Seph. Why'd'you have to be so loud I was havin' a good daydream."

The general frowned disapprovingly at him, his shoulders falling slightly, his voice hadn't lost it's slightly impatient tone though. "I asked you a question."

Zack's throat tightened and his head jerked up from the cold surface of the wooden desk. "What?" his voice was maybe a little too high pitched and held to much surprise than what he would have liked.

Now Sephiroth looked confused. "I asked if you planned to actually get any work done tonight what so ever. If not, just go back to the barracks and harass Cloud or something. Your no good to me here you keep spacing out. Come back tomorrow."

Zack didn't argue, he hated paperwork as much as Sephiroth did; but the silver haired general was far more used to it than he was, and probably understood what half of the documents where about whereas he did not. So he stood from the chair, feeling his kneecaps pop loudly and stretched the muscles in his neck and shoulders. "I'm not going to argue with that. But really Seph you should have something done about this next time, can't some one do your paper work while you're out on missions?"

"Apparently not, Zackary." He hardly sounded happy about himself. Most likely the General would find himself yelling at one of the hierarchy about it, maybe even the president himself. Of all people he should understand Sephiroth's position with the paperwork. Besides the General was a field man anyway, he was out doors more than in.

"Well, chatch'ya later then. Seph." Zack turned to look over his shoulder at the general, a flirty smile at his lips and mischief swimming his eyes.

Sephiroth met his eyes with a bored look. "Meet me here tomorrow at 800 hours."

"Ye'sir." A little salute and a hallway latter Zack started thinking about his overlapping reality and daydreaming moment.

He could have sworn Sephiroth had really responded to the way he'd thought, though maybe minus the hands, and voice, and- shit he needed to stop thinking about this in public. He was starting to get hard just thinking about the elusive and enigmatic general. Though he was close enough to he man to be called a friend, yet there were still many things he hadn't even wanted to think about himself. Like his little crush on the general. Or the fact that he got a hard on whenever someone so much as mentioned his name.

Had Sephiroth really said that?

He arrived at the cadet barracks and spotted Cloud before he got to think on it much further.

-

In the end Zack didn't have to meet Sephiroth in his office a few hours after sunrise because they were both called into action. They'd had reports of monsters terrorizing citizens in a village not to far from the Shinra training facility. They wanted to fucking up with the threat so close to home to they sent the best.

The General and Zack being the best set out on Chocobo as soon as the messengers arrived.

"So what are we looking at anyway?" Zack asked once they'd gotten to the site where the last sighting had been, an over crowded forest. Damp and muggy far from comfortable, Zack was glad that his SOLDIER uniform didn't have sleeves, though he had to feel sorry for Sephiroth. All that leather.

"The reports didn't specify, last sighting was an elderly man, bad eyes." Sephiroth made a vague gesture to his own eyes – knowing that he would never have the problem of bad eye sight, the worst he would ever get is his eyes loosing their ability to see things in the distance like a hawk could. The information flooding his brain and crowding it all. Though he would never go blind from it like Zack could- and surveyed all around them, spinning in a slow circle. "Usually we'd be forced to wait until another attack was made but it's to close to the Training facility. The president does not want to take any chances."

"Well that's comforting. Did they give a hint as to how many we are facing?" Zack checked his Bustersblade and then his matiria, not liking the odds. Though there was a possibility of only one monster, more than likely with his luck they would be outnumbered.

"They didn't specify." Sephiroth tied to Chocobo he'd used to the tree they had stopped by, a huge willow-like tree, although altered by a mako leak under the ground; that much they had been informed about. Possible mutations were a hazard. Another reason a first class SOLDIER and General had been dispatched and not simple ground troops. Zack followed the silver haired mans example and tied his golden Chocobo to the tree, ruffling it feathers briefly as he set out with Sephiroth into the unknown forest.

Almost every tree in the forest was mutated to the point of over population, it made it hard to get past some of the trees and vines without Sephiroth cutting them down first and running would be an impossible task as rooks and unstable ground structure was to much of a hazard. More than one the ground caved beneath Zack's feet and he had to twist his body to grab at a vine before he fell into a hole bigger and deeper than he would have expected to be made my natural causes.

"You realize this may be a trap?" Zack asked once he'd recovered, dusting off his fatigues and standing up straight to catch his breath, though he wasn't really tired, merely hot under the humid conditions and gasping for more oxygen to fill his lungs.

Sephiroth, who was a few feet in front of his paused and turned his head to the side then up to look at the trees, his hair following the movements of his actions. He didn't answer Zack, he didn't move either. He acted as if he hadn't heard him at all and had either seen or heard something of importance. He vaguely reminded Zack of a hound on a scent trail. Only on a much more precise and deadly trail.

Out of precaution Zack released his sword from the clip at his back and kept it at the ready, he'd noticed that Sephiroth had begun to walk with his hand on the hilt of Masamune a few minutes ago, he hadn't thought much of it though. He tried to listen to what Sephiroth was listening as well, tried to see what the General had noticed. He could find nothing other than natural sound of leaves whistling in the breeze and the deep groan of trees as their over grown branches brushed against each other in the breeze. The sun shone down is odd patterns and warmed Zack's face, which was already sweating with the intense humidity and heat.

He could hear nothing.

And that was the problem.

"Seph, where have all the animals gone?"

The silver haired man heard him this time. "They ran away."

"Yes. Well, that's obvious; but from what." Sephiroth didn't answer his question and just looked to the opposite side slowly. Zack answered his question himself.

"Not sure I want to find out."

Masamune hissed as she was released from her sheath, earning Zack's full attention. With swaying leather and grace of a thousand cats, Sephiroth turned to face him slowly Masamune waiting in his hands obediently by his side.

Zack took an unsure step back. "Seph…" The way he was looking at him was as if he was his prey. It was an utterly terrifying feeling to be at the end of Masamune's thirst.

Sephiroth fell into an attack stance and his features turned to killing intent and that small fire ignited in his mako green eyes, that smirk. The 'you are going to die' air about him, faced at Zack. Why?

"Sephiroth what-"

He was only able to block Sephiroth's sword out of pure reflex, sparks flew from the friction between the blades the muscles in Zack's arms began to ach from holding the blade off. Sephiroth wasn't moving like he usually would, he was moving as if he was even himself, like he was another person, only they were wearing Sephiroth's body like a suit. That was the only reason Zack had been able to respond to the attack so fast, because whoever was in Sephiroth's body did not know how to use the speed it could harness.

Zack pushed their blades aside and jumped back, putting some distance between the two and tried to figure out what was going on. "Come on Seph, what the hell is wrong with you!" he shouted as The General repositioned his grip on the sword and lunged at Zack, who kept blocking the long sweeping slices and quick stabs with some difficulty. He needed to snap Sephiroth out of this, otherwise something really bad would happen.

Finally when Zack had a chance he swung his sword at Sephiroth who's cat like eyes widened only for a second in shock before moving to the side, and the Buster blade imbedding itself halfway into the dark soil. The thing in Sephiroth's body seemed not to expect an attack from Zack, especially not with the resolve or intent Zack had used.

So that meant that they had been watching and surveying them, they were going to take them out. This was a trap, were they were intending to take out Shinras finest and then wage war on them or something? What they hell had the done to Sephiroth anyway, was this even him or a clone?

As he pulled his sword from the ground and repositioned his grip, Sephiroth did the same, his eyebrows pulling down. Still he said nothing, but he didn't really have to. It was a 'I'm serious now' look. Zack took a deep breath and griped the hilt of his sword harder, feeling his fingernails brush against the seems inside his gloves. He tried to get Sephiroth to hear him once again.

"I know you're in there somewhere, Seph. Come on!"

Then the thing wearing Sephiroth's body became impatient and attacked in a combo Zack was only just able to block, a few times Sephiroth hit him hard enough to make his head spin and loose his balance. He was loosing, slowly but he was loosing this fight. His matiria had been lost somewhere in the fight. All his hi-potions where in a small cluster by a tree not to far over to the right. Close but not close enough for him to reach.

"Shit. Come on Seph! Wake up!"

For a second he though recognition flash in those eyes, and the hands slowed for a bit before speeding up again in positioning Masamune for a high arch slash that would have cut Zack clean in half had he not dodged by dropping to the ground and rolling away. God he hoped the ground would not cave in now, not when he was just starting to brake through to him.

He pushed himself up off the ground and to the side just as Masamune bit into the ground creating a small dent into the dry soil taking a strand of his hair with it. His breath left him as Sephiroth's booted foot slammed into his chest, forcing with through the air and into the tree behind him, connecting with the wood in a loud crunch. Zack felt his back crack in several places, though not brakes or fractures, merely loosening the bones.

His sword fell from his hand as he briefly lost control of his muscles in shock. His head dipped forward and his neck cracked, then his knees buckled and he fell forward onto the unstable root system, from his knees he fell face forward onto the ground. His eyelids felt heavy for a second and then he closed them obeying what his instincts told him to do.

Sephiroth seemed to hesitate for another second, and Masamune whispered as she was returned to her sheath. Dry leaves crackled letting Zack know where the General was walking, to the other side of the clearing.

Then everything went black.


End file.
